Posts Tagged ‘design’

The rise of co-working we are told (WeWork to boutique offerings) is a trend that won’t stop in major financial centres and beyond. Demand for the traditionally designed office space is on an never-ending decline.

Have you have ever tried to have a confidential call in a public co-working space or undisturbed time to think? It is a constant attack on the senses.

Here is but three examples: John, the twentysomething facilities management salesman, who insists on telling Jo, his client at Selfridges how he pulled “a rough bird last night” while picking his nose… Sue, the “amateur” recruitment consultant, who asks her unwitting interviewee “tell me why did your boss let you go at Axa?”… Judith, the bespectacled marketing consultant, who insists on warming her Thai fish curry in the kitchen’s microwave, filling the last gasp of oxygen in the entire public space and blankly staring into a backlit screen.

If you haven’t seen this you are missing a treat.

I have not been in one “open” space, WeWork included, where the building operator and designer has truly figured out the sentient experience, in a hundred plus visits to different brands across the globe.

We are putting up with it, in a way we “live” with low-cost airlines or Luton Airport, accepting hardship in return for lower costs and greater flexibility. Can you really see sustainable growth for these businesses without better design that addresses basic human needs (greater privacy, minimum disturbance, and a more pleasant working environment)? I cannot.

What is the price of privacy and silence in a workspace? Money and demand are abundant from small medium enterprises wanting more flexible offices, and investors hurtling after them with bags of moolala. WeWork, the co-working giant, announced today that it has raised $500 million from SoftBank and Hony Capital to fuel its growth in China. I am helping another ambitious group charm professional investors with their Mandarin Oriental-style idea and secure north of a $100 million backing. Indeed, I write this sitting in my own upscale serviced office located in the heart of London’s West End. Yet there is one drawback that almost all of these co-working/serviced office operators have not properly addressed. Co-working is great until you want privacy and silence. You struggle like hell to find it. Hip canteen or dining areas, noisy club lounges, and expensive, clunky meeting rooms with time-consuming booking systems don’t provide real-time access to the seamless professional environment and image that your most discerning clients expect. Perhaps in a techie world but sorry, not in a professional services or financial services firm. It is like asking an Englishman to adhere to a relaxed dress code at a wedding, it is carnage. I am sorry but I neither want to work in or be seen as an underpaid HR manager ghosting in a Starbucks mid-morning. Whether we like it or not, informality in a business setting has its’ limits on how we think about ourselves, our productivity and our profit. The operator, who can truly provide a workspace with “flexible” privacy and silence is really the one to throw serious money at.